7 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) For A Healthy Support Desk

There are hundreds of metrics that can be tracked in business. The key is identifying the most important ones that allow your company to run a healthy, profitable support desk, while meeting its strategic and operational goals.

The goal of your support desk is to reduce downtime due to IT/technical issues, improve productivity, and of course, deliver quality services on time and within budget.

Here are Seven Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that need to be on the top of your list.

Ticket volume. It’s imperative to know how many new tickets your support desk receives daily, weekly, and monthly. This metric allows you to plan your staffing correctly. Keep track of seasonal trends, as well as time of day when ticket volume increases or decreases.

Response time. When a ticket is created, how quickly does your support team respond? The turn-around on this needs to be fast to keep customers happy. Long delays without acknowledgement of the problem is a sure recipe for customer complaints.

First contact resolution rate. This metric measures how many calls are resolved on first contact between the customer and support desk. The higher your first contact resolution rate is, the more satisfied your customers will be.

Resolution time. If you find there is a significant gap between when a support ticket is created and when it is resolved, this indicates that your support desk needs more training or that you need a higher tier of support available (consider using an outsource company that provides a hybrid tier system).

Incoming tickets vs. number of tickets resolved. In an ideal situation, the number of incoming tickets and number of tickets resolved should be roughly equivalent, which shows that your support desk is staying on top of the demand. If you have more tickets coming in than can be resolved, you’re creating a backlog and unhappy clients. To overcome this, make sure your agents have comprehensive knowledge-base and clear-cut documentation. This will help them resolve support tickets quickly the first time a customer calls in.

Support channel volume. If your company offers multiple ways for a ticket to be created (phone, chat, email, web form, etc.), you need to know the metrics for how many support tickets are received, so you can staff appropriately.

Individual performance. By tracking the metrics of your individual support team agents, you’ll know quickly if an agent is performing poorly, if they need additional training, or if more complex support is needed.

By tracking these KPIs, you can measure how well your organization is achieving its key business goals. It will also allow your team to monitor and improve your support desk operations and performance.

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Micah Laughlin

mlaughlin@canvasit.com

Micah Laughlin is the founder of Canvas IT and a leader in technology management services, supporting organizations of all sizes and helping them to thrive in spite of IT challenges and organizational changes. His first-hand experience with Service Desk Outsourcing companies led him to create a better way of doing IT outsourcing, the way he’d want it done. Today his philosophy carries on at Canvas IT as he creates a custom solution for each client just the way they’d want it done. Micah’s service desk management philosophy has supported dozens of growing businesses, adding value to the IT services they provide. Prior to founding Canvas IT, Micah spent more than 24 years managing IT operations – with 18 spent balancing the need for open, flexible systems with the restrictions of the highly-regulated healthcare industry.

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